Integrated bio-metal science: New frontiers of bio-metal science opened with cutting-edge techniques

Abstract

Trace amounts of "bio-metals" are essential for maintaining our life, but we have not yet fully understood mechanisms of how they function in proteins, cells, organs, and bodies. The Scientific Research on Innovative Areas "Integrated Bio-metal Science" aims to reveal regulatory mechanisms of the maintenance, failure and disturbance of the bio-metals by integrating several research fields dealing with the bio-metals into a new inter-disciplinary research field. Extensive researches of the bio-metals have been explored by the development of precise biophysical measurements and visualization of trace metals in biological materials. Cuttingedge developments of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), native mass spectrometry (Native MS), chemical imaging, and nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (NRVS) are now opening the door for new strategies to understand various kinds of biometals essential for life and to establish "integrated bio-metal science". For the issue, we have a symposium at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society of Japan held in September 2020. Six pioneers of the aforementioned measurements and exploitation of bio-metals were invited to introduce their marvelous techniques and discussed recent achievements toward medical and environmental applications. In this paper, their talks with figures provided from the speakers are summarized.